Tag Archives: being productive

If you read my post the other day, you saw I was trying to get myself motivated by following a mantra for the month of March. I was off to a great start. Then yesterday I looked on my S#IT list and saw change furnace filter. It should have been a 10 minute job ( get tools, unscrew furnace cover, pull out old filter, replace with new filter, screw furnace cover back on, return tools, move on to next item on list) only that’s not what happened. When I pulled out the filter, it looked like someone had shorn their sheep and left the wool on it. But that’s not what it was. It was a colony of dust bunnies lazing about on my furnace filter. After I finished screaming and throwing it into the garbage can, I noticed something. The dust bunnies were everywhere. I went to get a rag, but when I returned, a giant dust bunny that I kid you not was bigger than a cat. It must have been given a growth hormone similar to rBHT or rBGH or ISAT or GRE or whatever the heck they give animals to make them super big. It darted behind the water heater that shares a space with the furnace and played hide and seek with me.

I was afraid, but I was also afraid of what would happen if I didn’t do something. I returned with a spray bottle of cleaner and started spritzing it into every corner, hoping I could mat them down and then wipe them up. But it was like a B level Zombie movie. I looked around and all was fine. Then after I captured a dust bunny and looked again, I noticed them everywhere. I worked up a sweat trying to combat these fluffy nuisances. I felt like I was on a new television show like The Amazing Race, but instead of racing around the world, I am frantically racing around my house trying to stop dust bunnies from multiplying and impersonating my children. There is no prize because everyone knows you can never fully eradicate these critters. I found them nesting behind the warm refrigerator coils in the kitchen, making wild dust bunny love. They were also shagging behind the house plants like the apocalypse was going to happen in less than 24 hours. WARNING: the following image might be disturbing.

Two dust bunnies engaging in sexual relations.

While searching through my house I saw something disturbing. I never gave it any thought until that moment. I stood in the hallway staring up at what I believed to be the dust bunny portal to my house. A strange, circular vent with spirals that looked like no other vents we had in the house. There are always dust bunnies loitering underneath it. I think they wait there for their orders on where to deploy or which room to go to for doing it dust bunny style.

I’ve often wondered how they get upstairs, but I think I’ve figured it out. They hitch a ride on your sock or pants or soft slipper. Then when they arrive upstairs, they hop off, have a quickie, roll around on the big blue wool rug before snowboarding like Shawn White down the stairs, catching an edge, doing some flips before landing in some place hidden. How do I know this? I find bluish tinted dust bunnies on the first floor. It’s the only logical explanation of course.

After 3 hours of playing hide and seek with these despicable dust bunnies I had to stop. I think I eradicated about 95% of them. I hopped into the shower, knowing some of the babies were probably stuck to my hair or inside my ear. I also blew my nose. And before you think I’m going to drop some big TMI on you, keep reading. It was a good thing I did, because the tissue contained teeny tiny dust bunny eggs. Do you realize what this means? That I was a step away from incubating a new breed of dust bunny in my very own nose, not to mention probably landing a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records for starting a dust bunny colony there. Please people, remember to clean your nose after hunting dust bunnies. As someone famous said a long time ago, “One small step for man kind.” or something like that.

I know some of you are probably thinking, Why don’t you just use a Swiffer when you dust? These are an ingenious idea to ward off dust bunnies. Someone made a bunch of money from that product as we have turned into a nation of cleaning freaks because the commercials tell us to. I used to buy them but went through them faster than a gallon of milk when our condo was on the market and I was trying to keep the house Pottery Barn perfect. If I kept cleaning with them now I would have no money left over to buy real groceries. So now I use old kitchen towels. The problem with these is the amount of residue left over from the dust bunnies. I have to hold the towel at arm’s length from me before I spend 3 minutes rinsing the towel clean. Seriously there has to be a way to

a.) get rid of these once and for all because my friends and neighbors will never see me again if this keeps up or

b.) find a way to make use of the dust bunnies since they have no natural predators, unless you count the occasional puppy or toddler who has to put everything in their mouth.

So, as a concerned and weary citizen, I have started a list. I know I already have a long list of items on my GET S#IT DONE list, but this is serious folks.

Uses for Dust Bunnies:

Have everyone collect them and send them to the Argon National Laboratory in the near west suburbs of Chicago. I know those physicists and engineers could figure out a way to combine them with some super secret gas or chemical and launch them into the atmosphere to get rid of the Polar Vortex for good. Their mission statement says they try to address the societal needs of our nation. This would be perfect.

Use the dust bunnies to fill comforters. Yes, I know some people are allergic to dust, but these would be for everyone else to have an affordable way to keep warm during the continued long, cold winter caused by the polar vortex that all the United States is experiencing except for southern California and parts of Texas. You will be pleasantly surprised when your comforter gets bigger and plumper by the week as those dust bunnies go to town increasing their population.

Possible pothole filler ingredient. Back to Argon they go. The citizens of Chicago would be so grateful if a pothole that was just filled lasted longer than 12 hours.

A new secret weapon the military can use when they are fighting off terrorists or invading some foreign country. Just the threat of launching dust bunnies might cause the women of the country to order a cease-fire peace agreement. Dust bunnies have not been introduced to countries outside the U.S. They have the potential to wreak havoc in homes all over the world.

Phone operators for companies who don’t want to deal with customer complaints. I’m pretty sure large dust bunnies could pass for small people given the right disguise. I’m also sure they are capable of making some sound, although I don’t think I have heard them. Customers would get so flustered when the dust bunnies remained silent or garbled something unintelligible (kind of like when you are on a customer service call and the agent is most definitely working in another country.) This would cause customers to hang up, never to call again and waste their time. Hey, I think this might be the government’s solution to issues with Obama care. You can thank me later.

Dust bunny working as a telephone operator.

Well, I’m back to working on my list and trying to fill my head with other things that have nothing to do with dust bunnies. But I’m sure they’ll return sooner than I want them to. Be careful. This could happen to you, especially when you are trying to get S#IT DONE..

Damyanti Biswas is an author, blogger, animal-lover, spiritualist. Her work is represented by Ed Wilson from the Johnson & Alcock agency. When not pottering about with her plants or her aquariums, you can find her nose deep in a book, or baking up a storm.